caduceus
by wisegirlgeek
Summary: George and Martha were snakes. The tale of how they met Hermes and got their names - it was all because of Artemis, really. Oneshot fluff.


Once upon a time there were two snakes named George and Martha who were in love.

And let it be clear that these _were_ snakes; they weren't George Washington or Martha Washington.

But what most people don't know — well, everybody knows that George Washington was a son of Athena (no normal mortal has the capacity to run a country in the making), but they don't know the other thing about that specific president—

His wife?

Oh, yes, Martha. The one who was always waiting for him at Valley Forge.

Yeah. She was a daughter of Hermes.

You see, Hermes was especially proud of this daughter of his. His children usually didn't do good things.

Okay, okay. Maybe that was a bit mean. But think about it. Luke Castellan almost destroyed Olympus. The Stoll brothers have been man-hunted through camp exactly six hundred thirty-seven and a half times (the one in the middle of the Giant War didn't really count). Chris almost went mad working for Kronos.

At the end, most of the did the right thing (except for the Stolls. That was still to be determined). But the only one who was good all throughout was Martha. She rarely ever stole things.

 _Rarely._

I mean, those eggs don't really count, do they?

Nor the wig.

Or that fashionable hat Elisabeth kept flaunting in her face.

Oh, never mind that.

All-in-all, Martha was a pretty good daughter of Hermes.

And George and Martha? The snakes? Well, they had previously been known as Romeo and Juliet. Because Shakespeare, even though he had been a son of Apollo, had always been in Hermes good graces.

Shakespeare had also been blessed by Odin.

Hermes had always liked the Norse gods. They tipped him for his service skills.

Forget that.

Anyways, George and Martha the snakes did not like being called Romeo and Juliet.

Their love story was not tragic.

It was not special.

It was rather boring.

So instead, let me tell you the tale of how George and Martha the snakes met Hermes:

 _One day, some millennia ago (who's counting?) Hermes was taking a walk with his half-sister Artemis. She was in mourning—Orion, her one true love, had been killed the year before._

" _Oh, brother," she cried dramatically, clutching his sleeve, "shall I ever be over my love?"_

 _Okay, it didn't happen that way. It pretty much went like . . ._

 _Hermes walking in silence with a moody quiet Artemis walking beside him._

 _Yeah, that's it._

 _Oh . . . wait. The snakes._

 _So Hermes and Artemis were walking through the forest (that's getting repetitive) when they both tripped._

 _They didn't say 'ow' of course. Gods don't get hurt, and gods don't get owies and boo-boos._

 _(Except for Ares. But that's a story for a different time, involving the Black Death)_

 _When both of them got up, they saw two snakes. Both of the snakes were cowering up from the ground, looking at Artemis and bowing their slimy little heads._

 _They didn't bow to Hermes. Go figure. Who cares about the God of messengers?_

" _We . . . we are so sorry, my lady," the female snake said, "we did not realize that you would be walking today."_

 _The male looked scared as well, and he slowly inched behind the female (obviously his mate) trusting her to protect him._

 _Both Hermes and Artemis saw this._

 _Artemis sent Hermes an 'I told you so' look. She hated feminism._

 _Hermes glared._

 _Artemis smiled. "It's okay," she told the female. "No need to get bothered about it. Somebody needs to trip us up sometimes."_

" _Thank you, my lady," the female said._

 _Both the male and the female both slithered away, leaving a trail of slime behind._

" _That's disgusting," Hermes told his sister. "How can you even stand all these vile animals tripping you up? They deserve to be punished."_

" _Yes," Artemis said, "but I don't mind as much as you do. I'm not stuck-up to the point where every single living being who gets in my way needs to be punished."_

" _Dead ones deserve to be punished too," he replied._

 _She sighed. "Who are you to talk? You don't even spend time with animals."_

" _Nuh-uh."_

" _Okay. Tell me the last time you hung out with your sacred animal."_

" _I don't have one . . . I think."_

" _Exactly. You need an animal in your life. Actually, let me bring two over right now."_

" _Artemis, there's really no need . . ."_

" _Shut up. You're the only eh brother I have. SNAKES! COME OVER HERE!"_

 _Seconds later, the two snakes came out if a bush._

 _(Shocker. Bet you didn't see that one coming)_

" _Yes, milady," the female said._

 _Artemis gave her a bright smile, one that was hard to catch after the fall of Orion. "Would you mind doing me a favor?"_

" _Of course not, lady."_

 _(Really. Because there were so many other ways to answer that sentence)_

" _Could you help my brother here out for some time?"_

" _Sure, but what shall we do?"_

 _Artemis shrugged. "He'll give you something to do."_

 _The end._

 _Well, basically at the end of this scene George and Martha are put on Hermes' staff._

 _There they stayed._

 _Named_ Thilykós* and Arsenikós**.

For, like, three thousand years.

Maybe Romeo and Juliet weren't really bad names.

* * *

Oh, wait! It doesn't end there.

I mean, that story does, but not this one . . .

Basically, George likes to eat rats.

George Washington liked to eat fish.

The facts aren't really relevant, but who cares?

Both Martha's keep both of them sane.

(Or, well they try too . . .)

* * *

 _*_ Thilykós means female in Greek.

 _**_ Arsenikós means male in Greek.

* * *

 **Yay, look at this, an incredibly OOC bad-written fic!**

 **I'm bored.**

 **Now, for business—**

 **I'm looking for a beta who is pretty much always ready to go over my stuff, who is in the Pacific Time Zone (PST), who knows how to work the beta thing (cause I don't know . . .) and who's basically always ready to deal with my weirdness. They also have to be comfortable working with odd pairings. I don't write smut or slash (besides Solangelo), so they won't need to deal with that.**

 **I saw this challenge thing in HP where an author was writing drabbles about the characters with the least stories in the archive. George and Martha have two fics that they share. Now they have three.**

 **I might write more of these.**

 **Also, I know that this is odd and doesn't correlate at all to proper Greek Mythology. Just let me use my creative license and work with it, please.**

 **Last thing to conclude the long AN—please take the new poll on my profile.**

 **Review!**

 **-Dee**


End file.
